“I just want people to know that they have a choice and a chance to change their Sheriff’s Department for the better,” Bruce stated in the release. “They will have the choice to vote for experience, dedication to duty, integrity and leadership. This is what you will get when you cast your vote for Tom Bruce.”

Bruce has been a law enforcement officer since 1979 and attended the Arkansas Law Enforcement Training Academy in 1980. He was awarded a senior certification from the Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and Training Office. He is also a state-certified training officer and has been training officers since 1983. He has also worked overseas training police officers in Kosovo during a U.S. peacekeeping mission, training them in the field and at the Kosovo Police Academy.

“I have many hundreds of hours of training covering subjects such as advanced accident investigation, police supervision, criminal investigation, narcotics investigations and many others,” he said. “I also attended training at the Jimmy Rice Center for Missing and Exploited Children for Law Enforcement Executives in Washington, D.C.”

Bruce has worked as a chief of police, a criminal investigator, narcotics detective, a motorcycle officer, a patrol sergeant, a patrol officer, a desk officer and a dispatcher. He served in the Arkansas Army National Guard. He was honorably discharged after eight years having served in Operations Desert Shield and Storm during the Persian Gulf War. He has worked with the Crawford County Sheriff’s Office since 2005 as a criminal investigator.